If you don't have access to many resource books, can't regularly go on the Internet, or just want an additional source of teaching materials, you can use a single newspaper to create many lessons. Being able to photocopy the pictures or stories helps, but is not absolutely necessary-- you can also rotate the items among your students. Doing the activities in pairs or small groups increases the communicative value. The ideas below are grouped by level, but the tasks may be made more or less difficult for higher or lower level students. Please keep in mind that not all ideas are culturally appropriate for all groups. |
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| For lower-level students:
- Comic strips and cartons: White out or otherwise remove the wording from the bubbles. Let the students create their own wording. See who is the most creative, most humorous, or can use the largest number of current vocabulary words/structures correctly.
- Weather reports: Great for weather vocabulary, prepositions, practice with verb tenses (e.g. compare the weather yesterday, today and tomorrow).
- Pictures: Separate pictures from the stories they accompany. Have students decide what the story is about and tell the story of their picture.
- Classified ads: Depending on student interests, you can work with apartment or job listings, automobile sales, pets available, etc. Review the main vocabulary (including newspaper abbreviations) for the selected category. Students can choose an ad that appeals to them, then create a role-play based on that ad.
For intermediate students:
- Dear Abby: Give students the questions from a Dear Abby column, and let them write the answers. It's fun to give several groups the same question and see how their answers differ. They can then create their own "Dear Abby" questions and pass them to a different group to answer.
- Creative ads: Give students the picture from an advertisement. Let them decide what product the ad is for, and then prepare and present a "commercial" for that product. Or, have them prepare and post written advertisements for their products. The whole group can vote on the best ad.
- Intriguing headlines: Give students an interesting-looking headline, and have them create their own accompanying story, either in writing or for verbal presentation. Several groups can work from the same headline and produce vastly different stories.
For more advanced students:
- Mixed up text: Cut a story into its component paragraphs. Number the paragraphs in no particular order (helps to identify the paragraphs during the correction phase). Have students put the story in the correct order, using clues from the text.
- Grammar hunt: Using a medium-length story, have students hunt for examples of the grammar point they are studying(e.g., passive voice, past perfect tense, adjective clauses). The group with the largest number of correct examples wins. When all the examples have been found, discuss why the form was used in each place.
- What's that word? : From a medium-length article, white or black out a number of words (10-20) that students should be able to find a logical replacement for. Students have to figure out what part of speech they need, and then choose a word with appropriate meaning. The original word is not necessarily the only appropriate answer, so be flexible. This is a great exercise for TOEFL students to practice identifying what is needed in a sentence.
For business students:
- Interpreting graphs: Using the charts or graphs from current economic stories is a great way to introduce or review verbs relating to change (e.g., soar, rocket, crash, plunge, bounce back, fluctuate, stabilize). Have students dictate the ups and downs of a newspaper financial chart to their partner(s), who must draw the chart accurately.
Do you have more ideas for using newspapers? Other teaching tips? Please send them to us for publication in our next newsletter.
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